Egg
by LoweFantasy
Summary: Ray lays an egg and it's very serious business.


Egg

By LoweFantasy

"So, um…I've sort of, uh…"

Ray had his legs pinched uncharacteristically pinched together and his arms clenched behind his back. Every inch of skin had gone a sick sort of gray pale and gleamed with a layer of sweat.

Tyson, Max, and Kai sat around the table, munching on various things, as it was breakfast. Or, rather, Max munched, Tyson devoured, and Kai sipped a cup of old coffee.

Max got to his feet right away. "Are you alright?"

"Yeah, you look like you're about to hurl," said Tyson, toast crumbs all down his front.

The poor neko-jin sort of wobbled. Just as Kai put down his coffee to catch Ray in case he fainted, Ray's eyes rolled up into the back of his head and he crumpled. Somehow, Max got there in time to stop his skull from crashing into the floor.

"He's all clammy, I can't tell if he has a fever!" said Max, panicked.

"Ambulance! We need an ambulance! Grandpa!"

"He just fainted," said Kai irritably, but he still ate up the distance around the table to Ray's side to check his heartbeat. Yes, he was still alive and breathing. Heartbeat was strong.

Tyson ran out regardless, a piece of toast still in hand.

"Is he dying?" squeaked Max.

"Calm down," said Kai. He elevated Ray's feet on a nearby chair because he was not one for letting any part of anyone's body on his lap. Max did his best to help but moving to lift Ray's head, then thought better of it and just sat there like some too-kind girl with Ray's head on his lap.

Tyson skidded past the doorway, only remaining in sight by virtue of grabbing on to the door frame. "Gramps is gone! Quick, I think I know CPR!"

Max looked both affronted and horrified. "Think? Dude, doing CPR wrong can break ribs! And you'd be kissing _Ray!_ "

"It can't be that hard, you push their chest like in the movies and breathe—and at least I wouldn't be kissing Kai."

"Dude, you sound so gay."

"It's saving the life of a teammate! Sexuality has nothing to do with it."

Kai noticed Ray's eyelashes flutter. "He's coming to."

Instantly Tyson was down like a visitor to someone's deathbed. "Yo, Ray! Say something!"

"Tyson?" Ray blinked several times before focusing his gaze on Max. He frowned and sat up, a hand to his still pale face. "What am I doing on the kitchen floor?"

"You came in here looking like you needed to pee in a bad away and passed out."

The corner of Max's mouth twitched. "I guess he did look that way."

Kai sighed and moved to return to his coffee. No need for him to be around for this soap opera, now that he knew Ray was going to be okay.

"Oh…"

"He's wobbling again! Max, do something!"

"What?!"

"I think something's wrong with me," said Ray faintly. "Guys, I think…I think I just…"

"Just what, buddy? Spit it out! You're killing me here, do you need a bucket?"

Kai paused before taking a sip from his mug. Why was Tyson being so vomit happy?

"I think I just laid an egg?"

Kai choked a bit on his coffee, but only a bit. That was probably the oddest thing he'd ever heard from Ray. Maybe they should call an ambulance.

"What did you say?" asked Max.

"Something…something, uh…I mean…" Ray straightened, and Kai noticed with some chagrin that his face had suddenly gone so red, it was almost purple. "Nevermind! Just had a—a…excuse me for one moment."

Ray jumped up faster than anyone who had just passed out had reason to and ran from the room. Max and Tyson stayed in their respective positions of shock, staring at the spot where Ray had vanished, before letting loose a relieved burst of mirth.

"You hear that?" asked Max. "Laid an egg, oh boy."

"Probably took the biggest dump of his life," said Tyson with a hoot. "I swear, some of the stuff that comes out of my rear end would make a weaker man pass out too."

"TMI, Tyson! Seriously!"

No kidding. Kai had to abandon his coffee at that. He would not be in the same room as the air that had just accepted that particular fact of Tyson. He made for the back door in order to covertly leave for some private training, as he usually did when staying with Tyson, but figured he could drop to see if Ray was doing all right. Personally, Kai didn't think Tyson's…reason for Ray's ill sorts was not because of particularly strong defecation.

Despite that, Kai found him in the bathroom, bent over the sink with the facet on.

"Ray,"

Ray jerked up and whirled around, once more gray pale. "Oh hey! You need this? The bathroom, I mean. I'm almost done, I'll just, uh."

Kai was starting to feel very annoyed and very stupid. Don't tell him Tyson might actually be right. He opened his mouth to ask the other boy if he was okay, but stopped himself. He was not about to ask something that might open up the possibility of what happened on the toilet. Though, if he had ever been forced to talk about such a thing, Ray would be his choice.

He would have moved on, if it weren't for the fact that Ray had started to visibly shake. The pupils of the neko-jin's eyes, always quite visible in their pools of amber, started to expand.

Kai leapt forward just as Ray's knees gave out.

"Ray!"

"Da—Don't look in the sink," he mumbled. "Oh…I don't…"

Ray sagged in a dead faint, taking Kai down with him. Despite Ray's wishes, Kai detangled himself to take a peek into the sink. He doubted there was anything gruesome enough there to put him off.

At first he thought it was a joke. He even started smiling and chuckling. Some really weird, twisted joke of Tyson's that Ray had taken just a might too seriously. It had to be.

Because sitting in the sink, with hot water spilling about it, was a large jade egg, with almost waxy like skin. Kai even stepped forward to poke it, curious to see what kind of plastic it was made of. Its warm surface was surprisingly firm and…Kai frowned and lifted the egg from the water. It was heavy, of good, hefty weight, and the texture of the eggs skin was both hard, smooth, and somehow rubbery. How had Tyson made such a thing? It looked like it would be expensive, and Tyson had never been one to keep much cash on hand. Tyson saving money was like Tyson saving his packed lunch for lunch time.

Then again, Kai supposed it was possible. Ray had been looking a little green of late and had been complaining of stomach pains. Maybe that had given Tyson this idea, since he had thought Ray had gained a little weight around the middle and thought it would be funny to tease him. Kai hadn't noticed any such thing. Then again, he had only flown in two days ago.

Kai turned off the water, passing the egg from one hand to the other. Maybe he should break it open, see what it was made out of, or, if nothing else, to throw the remains at Tyson's feet when he gave the boy a well delivered two to five word guilt trip.

Suddenly, the door snapped closed behind him.

Kai turned to find Ray slumped against the door, face pale and alarmed.

"Why aren't I waking up!" he cried.

Kai rolled his eyes. "This is just some prank of Tyson's—"

"How?" Ray demanded, eyes wild. "I felt that thing come _out of me!_ There's been this hard lump in me for weeks now, I thought I was just gaining weight, or maybe had some sort of cancer or—"

Maybe Ray really was sick. "Ray, calm down."

" _Calm down?"_ It was like Kai had asked him to drink from the toilet bowl.

"Yes, calm down. Look," he lifted the egg in both his hands and raised it up, aiming for the corner of the counter.

"DON'T!"

The egg was swiped from his hands. Kai was left standing their stupidly with empty hands. He groaned.

"Ray, you're being—"

"I _felt_ it! And if this thing came out of me, that means—you could have killed whatever's inside it!"

It was official. Ray had lost his mind. Tyson really had taken it too far this time, though Kai didn't know if he could respect anyone who would take this particular prank so seriously.

But because he did respect Ray, he gave one last try. Pinching the bridge of his nose and closing his eyes, he leaned back on the counter. "Are you female?"

Ray stopped. "What?"

"Males can't lay eggs, in any species. So I ask again, are you female? And while we're on that train of thought, have you ever had sex? I suppose asking if you're a human being is out of the question, as you clearly seem to think you're some reptilian alien from outer space—oh God, I actually said that. This is rich."

Ray looked down at his hands where he clutched the egg. "Um…"

"Exactly. So, throw that thing at Tyson's head and see a doctor. For real." Kai reached for the doorknob, wondering if there was such a thing as brain bleach—or getting the BBA to record that he had never EVER been a part of this team.

"I'm a girl."

Kai stopped. _Excuse me?_

"And we had sex three nights ago. I thought you—you were drunk at the time, so I thought you knew…"

…Now he knew it was a dream. One of those messed up dreams that happened sometime after he ate Grandpa's extra spicy Kung Pow Chicken. Unless it wasn't too far of a stretch to think that Ray was-

"Woa woa woa, hold on, I can't breathe!"

Tyson, and Max had collapsed onto the floor of Tyson's room in the thralls of laughter. It had taken them over so thoroughly, they hadn't even paid mind to the fact that Tyson's floor was a mess of dirty laundry and old chip bags.

The only reason Kai was there still was because Hillary had locked them all in as a protest against their fighting. She had even gone as far as to turn the knob around so they couldn't get back out. Who knew the girl was so handy with a screwdriver? But the more he heard of the fanfiction story Kenny had found in the bowls of the BBA Fan site the night before, the more the window looked like a viable option for escape.

Ray sat with his legs crossed on Tyson's bed, looking caught between falling on the floor with the others to laugh his butt off or hiding himself beneath a mountain and never coming out.

Kenny, who had been reading the story out loud, to Kai's and soon Ray's dismay, had broken down into giggles as well, despite his efforts to do the story justice.

"Oh, guys guys, that's not even the least of it," he said between peals of mirth. "Apparently there's a riotous love triangle between Ray, Kai, and Tyson—"

Kai gagged. It was the first noise he had made since getting stuck in there and it attracted everyone's attention.

"That's it." He stomped to the window. "I'm out of here."

"Oh, but we haven't even discussed your secret passion for Ray!" cried Tyson, almost too breathless to be understood.

Ray dropped his face between his hands and both moaned and pleaded, "Guys, I'm dating Mariah. I'm not gay."

"We know that," wheezed Max, pawing up Tyson's bed like a zombie.

"But Kai," gasped Tyson. "Kai!"

"What?" the Russian snapped, foot already up on the open windowsill. It would be a two story drop. No matter. There was a tree nearby.

Tyson gathered himself the best he could in order to make a show of looking serious. He just managed to look constipated as he tried to hold himself back from laughing.

"Tell me the truth. Do you think I'm sexy?"

Max and Kenny tried to hold back their laughter as well, eager to hear his response.

Kai was not amused. Not in the least. The childish things these guys found to laugh at, ugh! Why did he work with these people? Why!?

He wasn't even going to grace that with an answer.

He jumped onto the windowsill.

"Holy crap, you mean you do?" said Tyson.

He had baited Kai's pride for the last time. Kai jumped back down and in one quick movement he crossed the space between them, took hold of the front of Tyson's shirt, and with one arm flung his teammate whole bodily out the window.

Tyson's scream was music to his ears.

Of course, he hadn't actually wanted to kill Tyson. He had been aiming for the tree. He had seen Tyson catch on to worse things.

Sure enough, Tyson caught himself on the biggest naked branch, though he did so like a cat clawing itself up from a bath.

"No," said Kai into the shocked silence of the room. He climbed back onto the windowsill and jumped down to the earth.

"Heeeellllll!" cried Tyson from the tree. "What is your _deal?_ You could have killed me! Are you some kind of homophobe or something?"

"Sexuality has nothing to do with it." And it didn't. It had to do with the fact that he had just had to put up with Tyson's childish attitude about training, Max's whining about Kai being up tight, and Ray's flapping about to try and make it all better like a mother hen, and then Hillary's petty punishment of locking them up in Tyson's room for two hours. Kai was hungry, tired, and did not deal well with his time being wasted.

Seriously. People who wrote fanfiction were sick in the head. Made him want to throw Tyson out a window again just to shake off the shudders.


End file.
